Did you say 'a second Atatürk'?

Since the field is empty, perception management is immense, and ignorance is rampant; they are talking.

AKP Hatay Deputy Hüseyin Yayman said, “If Atatürk were alive today, I claim that he would also stand by our President and adopt his policies. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded our Republic, and it is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who has brought it to the level of contemporary civilizations. Therefore, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the second Atatürk, and he is working harder every day for Turkey to reach its 2053 and 2071 goals.”

Either they have never known Atatürk at all, or they are mocking our intelligence.

For those who might believe those words, shall we make a comparison on some key issues?

HE DID NOT DECEIVE

Atatürk said, “I take pride in not having deceived our nation with the words I have spoken and the actions I have taken so far.”

They have repeatedly confessed to being “deceived” and “tricked,” and asked for forgiveness from God and the nation.

Atatürk said, “We have not taken our inspiration from the heavens or the invisible realm, but directly from life itself. What charts our path is the homeland we live in, the Turkish Nation from whose bosom we emerged, and the conclusions we have drawn from the pages of the history of nations, which record a thousand and one tragedies and sufferings.”

They, at every opportunity, recited the lines: “Do not say fate, there is a fate above fate. Whatever they do is in vain, there is a decision that comes from the heavens.”

HOW HAPPY IS THE ONE WHO SAYS I AM A TURK

Atatürk trusted the Turkish Nation, was always proud to be a member of it, and said, “How happy is the one who says I am a Turk.”

They decreed, “Theses like 'Turkey belongs to the Turks' are wrong.” They banned the recitation of the 'Student Oath' in schools. They trampled Turkish nationalism underfoot.

FROM THE STRUGGLE AGAINST IMPERIALISM TO THE BOP

Atatürk fought against imperialists and founded the Republic of Turkey.

They took on the role of “co-chair of the Greater Middle East Project (BOP)” of the imperialists and supported the occupation of Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

Regarding the Treaty of Lausanne, Atatürk said, “This treaty is a document that expresses the collapse of a great assassination attempt prepared against the Turkish nation for centuries and thought to have been completed with the Treaty of Sèvres,” and “It is a work of political victory unprecedented in the history of the Ottoman era. The youth, who should appreciate the high value of this treaty, which is a high work of the Turkish Nation, should compare it with treaties made in the past.”

They claimed that Lausanne was “tried to be swallowed as a victory” and demanded it be updated.

Atatürk said that Lausanne was crowned with the Montreux Convention.

They opened a case against retired admirals who wanted Lausanne to be protected, accusing them of a coup, and put them on trial.

Atatürk said, “Even if we are forced to struggle for years, we are determined to drive the Greeks out of Anatolia. Turkey belongs to the Turks! This is the principle of patriots. We have decided to continue the struggle to defend our rights.”

They did not raise their voices against Greece occupying and arming our islands. Moreover, they celebrated Greece's independence day.

ATATÜRK'S YOUTH

Atatürk said, “All my hope is in the youth,” and entrusted the Republic to them. He advised the young people he sent abroad for education, “I am sending you as sparks, you must return as flames.”

They pursued “raising a vengeful and religious generation” and handed over nurseries, schools, and dormitories to sects, madrasas, and foundations; they extinguished the spark in the eyes of children and young people.

Atatürk said, “Entrust me to Turkish physicians.”

They gave the cold shoulder to doctors who lost hope in the country and left, saying, “If they go, let them go.”

WHICH SECT?

Atatürk said, “Today, in the face of the flame of science, knowledge, and civilization in all its breadth, I never accept the existence of primitive people in the civilized community of Turkey who would seek material and spiritual happiness through the guidance of this or that sheikh. Gentlemen and the nation, know well that the Republic of Turkey cannot be a land of sheikhs, dervishes, disciples, and followers. The most correct and truest sect is the sect of civilization.”

They governed the country with coalitions of sects/communities and “gave them whatever they wanted.”

PEASANT-FARMER-RETIREE

Atatürk declared the farmer and the peasant, whom he emphasized were the benefactors of us all, the true owners and masters of Turkey, and said they “deserved more prosperity, happiness, and wealth than anyone else.”

They finished off agriculture and animal husbandry in the country with the “reform packages” of the US-EU. They condemned farmers to misery.

Atatürk said, “The attitude of a nation towards its elderly citizens and retirees is the most important criterion of that nation's vitality. A nation that does not feel gratitude towards those who worked with all their might when they were very strong in the past has no right to look to the future with confidence.”

They made it so that retirees cannot go out on the street or give pocket money to their grandchildren.

THE PLACE OF THE TURKISH OFFICER

During the National Struggle, Atatürk emphasized that the imperialists had decided to destroy the independence of our nation and that they had targeted our army first to achieve this, saying, “To destroy the army, it is absolutely necessary to ruin and humiliate its officers.”

They acted as the “prosecutor” of the cases opened while thousands of our officers were being destroyed by the plots of imperialists. They allowed the “cosmic room” of the Turkish Armed Forces to be entered.

AND ESPECIALLY THE ECONOMY

Before declaring the Republic, and even before signing Lausanne, Atatürk convened the Economic Congress. In his opening speech at the congress, he first addressed the participants as follows:

“Friends, you come directly from the social classes that make up our nation and you have been elected by them. Therefore, you know the state, needs, and the aspirations and sorrows of our country and our nation closely. You know better than anyone else. The words you will say, the measures you will say need to be taken; are accepted as if they were spoken directly from the tongue of the people. This is the greatest truth. Because the voice of the people is the voice of right.”

Then, saying, “If Turkish history is researched, it will be understood that all the reasons for rise and fall are nothing but an economic issue,” he summarized the following:

“Foreigners were provoking internal elements on one hand; on the other hand, they were interfering in the internal affairs of the Ottoman state, and in every interference, they were obtaining new privileges and rights, again to the detriment of the state and the nation. In the homeland, which was already impoverished under these continuous problems, the main element was struggling to prepare the money to give to the state. However, the crown holders, the rulers, the Palaces, the Sublime Porte, in order to have great ostentation and glory, to maintain it, and to satisfy their pleasures and passions, have resorted to the means of preparing this money at any cost. And those means became debts. They were borrowing so much, and they were borrowing under such bad conditions that their interest could not even be paid. In the end, one day they decided on the bankruptcy of the Ottoman State. Financial affairs were immediately brought under control, and the trouble of general debts had fallen upon us... Indeed, in the past, and especially after the Tanzimat era, foreign capital had a superior place in the country. And it can be said in the scientific sense that the state and government did nothing but act as the gendarmerie of foreign capital. Now, like every civilized state and nation, the new Turkey cannot comply with this. It cannot let this place be a slave country.”

Two of the decisions taken at that Congress were as follows:

“The people of Turkey do not destroy; they build. All labor is aimed at economically uplifting the country.”

“The people of Turkey are aware that they are sitting on a gold treasure in terms of wealth. They love their forests like their children, they hold tree festivals for this; they grow new forests. They operate mines for their own national production and try to know their wealth better than anyone else.”

As for them; they sold all the accumulations of the Republic... Forests are being plundered... They said, “The economy is my business,” and took “Nass” (religious decree) as a reference. The result is obvious; they are looking for money from four sides, and concession after concession is being given to the imperialists!..

WHOSE PROJECT IS THE “SECOND ATATÜRK”?

To those who seek “fame and glory” through Atatürk; let us also remind them of the following words of the Great Leader:

“It is a mistake to talk about my fame and honor. Listen well, my advice is this: if any man among you emerges, pursues a case of fame and honor, and wants to be unique, he is a trouble for you; he is the first man whose head should be broken! If the Turkish Nation to which I belong has fame and honor, I have fame and honor by virtue of being a member of it, I am never anything else.”

“A second Atatürk,” is that so?

Long before them, back in 2002, when former Israeli diplomat Alon Liel wrote the book on the AKP, he had given the message that Erdoğan could be a “second Atatürk.”

Moreover, in 2005; British Andrew Duff, a member of the Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Committee, who decreed, “We do not want to see Atatürk pictures in buildings. You cannot enter the EU with this mentality,” also made the “second Atatürk” analogy for Erdoğan in 2011.

What interesting “foresight” and “intellectual unions,” aren't they?!